The Way It Is
by Crookshank's Revenge
Summary: Everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes are bigger than others. Harry finds out about the Wizarding World before he is eleven, along with some other interesting information.


Some people got everything they wanted and some people got nothing.

Dudley Dursley got everything he wanted, and Harry Potter got nothing. This was the way things were.

Harry Potter had no parents. They had died in a car crash nine years ago when Harry was a year old. Harry was lucky that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were able to take him in, no matter how much they regretted doing it. Without his Aunt and Uncle's charity, Harry would be in an orphanage. According to Uncle Vernon, orphanages were cold, dreary places where children were beaten daily and given little or no food. Harry didn't get much to eat as it was, and knew how awful hunger could be. Sometimes when he was bad or did freaky things, Uncle Vernon got very mad, but Harry didn't make Uncle Vernon mad every day. His bedroom, the cupboard under the stairs, was warm. All in all, life was all right.

Dudley Dursley had his parents and got many things that Harry did not. Dudley ate as much as he liked, played as much as he liked, and never had to do chores like Harry. Dudley was cared for when he was sick, had his drawings hung up on the refrigerator, and got lots of presents on his birthdays and on Christmas. Perhaps these were things that only the children with their parents got. Harry did not know.

But this was the way things were.

Sometimes, late at night, Harry would wish for parents that loved him like how Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia loved Dudley. He dreamed that perhaps his parents were not really dead and would come for him one day, or perhaps he had some distant relative that would love him like a parent would and they would leave his Aunt and Uncle's house on Privet Drive forever. He knew this would never happen, but Harry liked to pretend.

* * *

One day, Uncle Vernon and Dudley left the house to spend the day in London and left Aunt Petunia and Harry at home to do Spring cleaning. Harry was assigned to the Attic, where he was to locate the boxes in which Petunia kept Dudley's school work and art and add in this year's batch. Harry found the correct box quickly and then decided to stay upstairs a little longer. Aunt Petunia was busy with the laundry anyway and had told Harry to keep out of her way.

Up in the dark, dusty attic, Harry curiously read the labels on the boxes written with Aunt Petunia's neat, precise print.

_Kitchen Utensils. Vernon's Smeltings Things. Dudley's Baby Toys. Lily._

The last one caught Harry's attention. Lily. He had heard the name before, when Aunt Petunia was filling out paperwork so Harry could attend Primary School. Lily, as in Lily Potter, Harry's mother.

Harry held his breath and listened for Aunt Petunia. The television was on in the den and Harry could hear the water in the washing machine begin to run. Aunt Petunia was on the other side of the house. For now, it was safe.

Harry was not allowed to ask questions. It made his relatives upset when he so much as mentioned his parents. Anything relating to his parents was information that Harry soaked up and committed to memory as quickly as he could. Lily was his mother's name, his father was James. Lily had red hair and green eyes, like his. James had black hair like Harry. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia did not like to talk about James and Lily, but Harry did not know why this was. It was just how things were.

But for now, Petunia was not around and Harry had a box with his mother's name on it. Harry lifted the box labeled _Dudley's Baby Toys_ off of the top of the slightly squashed _Lily_ box, setting it aside for now. Harry gently undid the packing tape, careful to not make much noise in case Aunt Petunia came to check up on Harry's progress.

The first thing that Harry noticed was a small pile of documents on the top of the stuff in the box. Harry carefully lifted the stack of old thick papers, glancing down at the trinkets in the bottom of the box: A wooden jewelry box with a glass lid, an old Polaroid camera, a stuffed toy bear, and a long and thin cardboard box. Harry decided to look through the papers in his hands first.

One of the papers was a birth certificate, his! The next was a letter on some official looking stationary, the next was the cover sheet of some adoption papers.

Adoption papers? _James Potter's_ application for adoption.

Harry looked back at his birth certificate.

_This document certifies that one Harry James Evans, son of Lily Evans and Severus Snape was born July 31, 1980…_

Who was Severus Snape? Harry went back to the adoption papers he had left in his lap. They were papers certifying that James Potter was applying to adopt Harry Evans, son of Lily Evans Potter. Maybe this Snape fellow was already dead? Harry had his mum's surname on his birth certificate, not Snape's, so did this mean that his mum didn't marry Snape? Was he already dead? Was he alive and unaware that Harry even existed? Harry's heart raced with this new information about his parents. He was so engrossed with reading the papers in his hands that he almost missed the noise of Aunt Petunia ascending the staircase from the first floor.

Hastily, Harry stuffed the documents under his oversized hand-me-down shirt, closed the _Lily_ box, and put everything else back the way he had found it.

"Boy? Aren't you finished yet? The living room needs vacuumed and then Dudley's room needs to be cleaned again. I won't have you lazing around all Saturday!" Aunt Petunia called up through the entrance of the attic.

"Y-Yes, Aunt Petunia! I'm coming!" Harry replied, scrambling over to the hole in the floor he had entered through. By the time he had made it to the exit and onto the ladder, a disinterested Petunia was already down the staircase.

"Well, hurry up then!" She said, going back to her own tasks. Harry waited until she was out of sight before stowing the papers away in his cupboard, hidden under his cot. He could look at them as long as he wanted to later when everyone else had gone to bed.

Harry lugged the vacuum out from the hall closet and went to work.

"

* * *

Author's Notes: Let's see how this goes. I have a pretty good idea where I'm taking this, and it isn't your usual fluffy story.


End file.
